San Francisco's Candlestick Park Could Get Name Change
June 26 (AP) ? Looking to raise revenue for the cash-strapped city, San Francisco officials may once again allow a corporate sponsor to name fog-shrouded Candlestick Park.
Five companies are interested in naming rights to the football stadium: low-cost airline Virgin USA, technology consulting firm Organic Inc., Monster Cable Products Inc. and banking giant Wells Fargo & Co., according to Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle.
But could the '49ers hold their heads high while passing the pigskin in the Virgin Vault? Might a venue that replaced its Astroturf with grass in 1979 become Organic Field?
No one knows whether a new name for the 'Stick would stick. Few natives have wavered from the original moniker, even after 3Com Corp. attached its name to the stadium from 1995 to 2001.
The park - on a rocky, windy outpost next to the San Francisco Bay, famed for its chilly summers when the fog envelops the peninsula - was completed in 1961 as a stadium for San Francisco's professional baseball and football teams.
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors must sign off on any naming rights deal, which Mayor Gavin Newsom believes could generate at least $3 million. It's unclear whether city officials would condone a Monster's Ballpark or Wells Well.
Newsom's predecessor, Willie Brown, tried twice to strike a new deal after the 3Com agreement expired, but supervisors refused to sell the naming rights.
Tourism has remained weak since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and local unemployment has yet to recover from the 2000 dot-com crash. Last month, a financial rating agency downgraded San Francisco's $1.7 billion debt, and an analyst said the city's reserve fund has dwindled from $45 million in 2003 to an estimated $6 million in 2004.
Supervisor Tony Hall, who voted against a corporate name during the Brown administration, said the financial crisis could persuade him to vote differently this time.
"The budget situation is quite different now," he told the Chronicle. "We really need the money."
Why not sell it to some high bidder who would actually take care of the place? What do I know. Some of the names are funny. Monster's Ballpark.
